San Francisco: Scientists have found a better way to predict what personality traits might indicate that a kid is at risk for drug or alcohol abuse. The finding of Brian Knutson, professor of psychology at Stanford University, and Christian Buchel, professor of medicine at Universitatsklinikum Hamburg Eppendorf, was based on a brain scan data set of 144 European adolescents who scored high on a novelty seeking test. Psychologists know that kids who score high on tests of novelty seeking are on average a bit more likely to abuse drugs, experts said.

The researchers were out to work on the question: could there be a better test, one both more precise and more individualised, that could tell whether novelty seeking might turn into something more destructive? They suspected that a brain-scanning test called the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) Task could be the answer. Knutson had developed MID as a way of targeting a part of the brain now known to play a role in mentally processing rewards like money or the high of a drug. agencies